Olympians sweep podium at Canadian Open halfpipe finals

It was a picturesque day in Calgary for the internationally diverse field of riders who were competing for a piece of the 25,000 US Dollar prize purse, in addition to valuable points towards the TTR World Snowboard Tour titles.

The women were first to drop and Kiwi Kendall Brown took the top spot in semis with a run that started out with an alley-oop tai-pan, followed by back-to-back 540’s, into a stylish method, finishing with a difficult air to fakie melon, which scored her an impressive 88.17. Canadians Mercedes Nicoll and Sarah Conrad were hot on her heels, taking second and third respectively.

In finals Conrad stepped it up and threw down a great run that featured back to back 5’s, but Kendall regained her lead with her second run. Brown started off her winning run with a lein air, followed by a backside 540 mute, into frontside 540 stalefish, into backside air, finishing with an air-to-fakie. Kendall had this to say of today’s win, “This was a great competition; it was so awesome to have such a good pipe and so much time to train over the week. It’s my first Canadian Open and I will definitely be back next year.”

It was then the men’s turn to drop-in to the 22’ halfpipe at Canada Olympic park and Iouri “I-Pod” Podladtchikov, hot off of a silver medal win at the X-Games, stuck his second run and took first in semis with a solid score of 86.67. I-Pod’s run started off with a huge fronside air, followed by a backside 900 melon, into a frontside 1080 tailgrab, Cab 720 indy, finishing with a frontside 540 back side grab. Fighting Podladtchikov for first were Ben Watts (USA) and Dustin Craven (CAN), who both impressed the judges with their style and amplitude.

Canadian Justin Lamoureux took the lead early in finals with his clean spins and technical runs, while Markus Malin wowed the crowd with a double cork 1080 truckdriver. But it was I-Pod who took the win after stomping his second run in finals, starting off with a Cab 1080 double cork mute, followed by a frontside 1080 tailgrab, into a Cab 720 mute, frontside 540 tailgrab, finishing with a stylish backside air. “I am in the best condition of my life,” said Iouri. “I have had a great season so far. I have already had some podiums in the contest circuit this year, but of course taking first is the sweetest place to be.”

Chamonix again provided the thrills of freeride, hosting the second stage of the Freeride Tour: the Nissan Russian Adventure, initially planned to take place in Sochi, but moved to Chamonix for security reasons and difficult weather conditions.